Songs of the Bothy Balladeer

Available for over a year

17-year old Rachel Carstairs speaks and sings in Doric. It's a dialect not commonly used outside Rachel's native north-east Scotland, but she has grown up unusually steeped in local folk traditions. She started singing the area's unique traditional farm-worker's songs, known as 'Bothy Ballads', aged just 4, when she entered a music festival competition. This is why her music teachers now see her as an exciting 'tradition bearer'; with the potential to be a leading voice in the Scottish folk scene's next generation. But before that can happen, she has just 15-minutes to impress an audition panel at the world renowned Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Will she take her place at Scottish traditional music's top table? Producer: Dave Howard.